All posts for the month May, 2012

Been caricaturing more. It’s hard to nail down a formula. There’s a clear difference between drawing a funny anonymous face, and drawing a funny face that looks more like Tony Danza than a Tony Danza photograph. Been trying to formalize a process, and at the very least here’s the ideas I’ve got so far.

Emphasize asymmetry. This happens more in the lipline (and thus its connected nasolabial furrow and nostrils) and brow (and thus connected left/right eyelid; you usually don’t move one without the other)

DO NOT start with a principle shape; DO start with separate shapes. The majority of formal construction tutelage suggests that you start a head with an extended sphere or cube; heads done this way, IMHO, instantly lose the ability to show different areas as more or less important Instead of starting with a single spherical skull-and-jaw, build out of lego blocks your jaw (big or small?), your cheekbones (wide or sunk, high or sad?), your nose (Tinkerbell or Jafar?) your teeth block, the thin or thick lips around them, etc…Even your forehead plate, which is just the front part of your skull, can be given a person’s unique shape if you consider it a separate part.

Consolidate tons of reference photos, OR use one iconic photo. We can all make a momentary face that looks fun, but when taken as part of a series in no way represents our true personality. If you use such a photo as a primary reference, it’ll throw people off, because it’s not a look that actually gets associated with you. Be careful not to overdo a feature that we won’t connect with! That said, some ideas are so iconic, they do deserve to be written in stone. Consider Jack Nicholson’s “Here’s Johnny” face, Stephen Colbert’s eyebrow raise, or the Olsen Twins’ don’t-show-your-teeth smile. These are ingrained into them deeply enough that it’s worth a single photo moment dominating your impression of them.